Lord Jim Still Stuck on the Hard

It occurred to us recently that we hadn’t had an update lately from our old friends Holger Kreuzhage and Tracy Brown on the progress of their 72-ft gaff tops’l schooner Lord Jim.

As regular readers will recall, the 73-year-old classic sank in the spring of ’07 off the coast of Brazil, after hitting an uncharted rock. She was quickly refloated, however, and hauled out at a small yard on the Brazilian coast. The good news was that there is a phenomenal supply of excellent hardwood in that area and plenty of old-school shipwrights who could help not only with repairs from the collision, but also with a total refit of the double-planked hull.

The work went very well and, in fact, was completed about a year ago. But — here’s the bad news — Holger and Tracy had to spend months in a nasty court battle with the yard owner, aka "the shark," who they claim was trying to take possesssion of the boat. The former Sausalito couple won the court fight, but now the yard boss has disabled his marine railway to spite them.

"One has to live in Brazil for a while to get an understanding of how screwed up this country is. No one quite understands yet that extortion and blackmail have no room in the business world of a modern or civilized country."

Holger and Tracy are not ones to give up easily, however. They’ve started a media campaign in the Brazilian press — both in print and on TV — which is "starting to show some impact."

As the photo above illustrates, they’ve been flying their American flag upside down lately, which is, according to Holger, an international sign of distress and also codified in U.S. law. "We have not given up the boat," he insists. "Rescuing it from the sinking was a lot easier than fighting off the land-sharks!"